


drenched in bombay champagne

by orphan_account



Category: Running Man RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gang World, F/M, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-24
Updated: 2017-01-24
Packaged: 2018-09-19 14:47:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9446072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: "Let's not fall in love, then, yeah?" he'd said, and went right ahead in doing so anyways.





	

  

 

 

 

“It’s always going to be you, isn’t it.”

Gary would classify this as a _moment_ , with a line like that, straight out of those 40s noir romance films Jihyo liked to play in the background while she burnt some type of meat on the stove, trying to keep up the pretense of being able to cook, the homemaker of their fucked up nuclear family. But he's a bit preoccupied trying not to bleed out half of his body weight on the carpet below him. Just when he'd Cloroxed the last stain, too, damn.

"I know you harbour some sort of repressed feelings for me, or somethin'," he says with a grin. It's sloppily made. The rows of his teeth rock together like shoreline stones against the hull of a crashing ship. But Jihyo looks like she might be worried, for once in all the times he's stumbled fucked right up into her room to be sewn back together again. He'd like to remember himself as to have played it cool, when he looks back on the memory, ten, twenty minutes later. Thirty years down the line. "But, like, I'm seriously dying over here."

"Don't be so dramatic," she says, rolls her eyes. The concern in her voice isn't long-lasting. It never is. Maybe he's imagined it being there to begin with. "Come here."

He shuffles over, a duck's waddle, the opposite of what he wants to accomplish in front of her. She walks over to support him halfway, her arm warm around his waist, and he doesn't mind it as much then, losing control.

"What was it this time?" she murmurs, gauze and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide ready in her hand. It's a running joke, with all of them; children grow up sleeping with bears and dolls and parents in their beds, but Song Jihyo has always only had a medicine kit within her clutch.

"Fucker had a knife," he says. He's been stabbed before, a couple of times, but it was never his injury of designation; that was Ha Ha's. His was more hands on, a fight to the death in a boxing ring that extended to the four borders of the undergrounds of Seoul. "And he knew he wasn't allowed either, the bas— _Jesus_ ," he hisses, because Jihyo's poured half the bottle of antiseptic on his wound without telling him. That's nothing new, either, but the pain always is. Always fresh. "Mind warning a guy before you singe off three layers of his skin? Shit."

"As if you don't like it," she counters, and that's true. None of them would be here, doing what they do, if they didn't get high from the sight of blood, didn't feel a ripping sense of satisfaction with the wear and tear and wear again of flesh.

Using this an excuse to see more of her, though. That's true, too.

"Kinky," he leers, then swears again at the burn of the peroxide against his ribs. "Is that what gets you going at night, Jihyo-y— _fucking Christ_ —"

"Be quiet," she orders, and he follows. Thinks idly about some old adage he'd always heard from those bogus fortune tellers when he'd still lived in the streets. Something about a man not being good without a woman behind him, or whatever. He'd rather be behind her, though, but he mostly agrees.

They stay in silence. She patches him up, like always, hand steady when she threads needle and string through skin and muscle. Doesn't flinch. Doesn't make a mistake. Like always, he watches her work, and like always, he finds her gruesome, because that's what beauty equates to, in their world.

"Done," she says. Her hand lingers over the bandage she's secured. His own hand twitches, mind of its own, deciding that it wants to hold her fingers over his skin for longer, but even the simple movement shoots pain up the entire left side of his body. He takes it as a sign, stops trying. "Want me to give you something for the pain?"

He thinks about it. "No," he says, ultimately, and runs his tongue along the inside of his lower lip. Thinks if he should say what he's already saying next, "Jongkook-hyung's emptied our supply again." Regrets it, because Jihyo's face crumples into something like surrender.

"Is he—" she sucks in a breath. The closest she's ever come to yielding has always been for Jongkook. Gary knows this like coda. If anything, it makes it easier for him to hold no bars when he trains with Jongkook. Heartbreak betters the technique of his uppercut, apparently. "I thought he was serious about quitting this time."

Gary would laugh if he wasn't certain that it'd hurt like a bitch. Not that it'd be any worse than the alternative, than right now, pining for something that doesn't exist. "Well. Druggies are druggies for a reason, ain't they?"

"He said he'd try," she mumbles, and he wants to shake her, try and make her see. Seventy-nine attempts, Jongkook's done, and none have succeeded. Gary's counted. Mostly because he's good at it. And for sixteen of those tries, Jongkook had promised to quit for Jihyo. That, he only knows because he'd been the one Jihyo cried to every time Jongkook eventually fell off the wagon. This is no different.

"Jesus," he says, but he reaches his arms out, despite the searing pain, cradles her body into his and pushes her head down gently to lean on his shoulder. Enjoys it, because he's sick, because with where he's at, he'll always take what he can get. "What's the point of an entire district being scared of you when you're just going to be a big fucking softie at home, huh?"

"Shut up," she says, voice muffled against his collarbone. Her lips brush skin when she speaks, delicate, and it's like a seal for something. His integrity, his sanity, gone and packed away because he never learns, doesn't know how to stop. "You always talk too much. Ruins everything."

"And you talk too little about things that'll actually change," he says. Tries to keep the bitterness out of his voice, uncertain if it's triumphant. Probably not. His track record's always been shoddy, when it comes to this. "But s'alright. Someone's gotta keep the hope going in this hellhole."

She cries for a bit, hushed into the crook of his neck. Nothing loud, because Jihyo's tough, the toughest, reserves all the tears someone lesser than her would have already shed for just a couple of things: insects, nightmares about her family, Jongkook. Never him.

It's almost a designed script in his head, how this goes. Recites it mentally now, preparing, while she starts to settle down. He'll say:

"Feel better?" He kneads at the tail of her spine with his knuckles. If she melds into the touch, he doesn't overthink it. Can't afford to.

She'll say: "Sorry." She pulls away, eyes already dry but still red-rimmed. She peels his hand off of her back, and the cold encroaches his palm like the loss of something heavy.

And then he goes: "'S fine," means it, even if he's not sure what she's sorry about; that he loves her, over and over and over, or that she doesn't, over and over and over.

It doesn't matter. He reads on, anyways. (over and over and over and over and—)

 

 

/

 

 

(She goes off-script, once. "I wish it was you."

"What?" He remembers not breathing for a while. A clean jab to the gut, rising straight into his lungs, stunting his flow of air.

"I wish," she'd said. Met his gaze, dead on, unerringly precise, even at her worst. Their ace. "It was you. That I'd return what you feel. Then it wouldn't have to be so hard."

He kills someone with his bare hands for the first time, later that night. Doesn't feel a thing during, nor does he afterwards, just to prove a point.)

 

 

/

 

 

"You're slippin', old man."

"Jesus _fuck_ ," he curses, heart in his throat. Ha Ha's perched on the countertop, crouched on his toes behind the cover of the refrigerator, watching. Kwangsoo's got his switchblade to his neck, the pulp of the apple he'd been peeling beforehand dripping down the length of it; Kwangsoo's special patent on homecoming. "You got a vendetta? You literally could'a killed me."

"But I didn't," Kwangsoo says, lowers the knife down to pare at more fruit. "You got good reflexes." It's not a lie. But Gary's alive not because of them, for once. Kwangsoo had held back, tamed the animal he usually is once he gets hold of a weapon. That's what scares him the most, not Kwangsoo; slipping, like Ha Ha'd said.

"What happened to you?" Ha Ha asks, eyes squinted, flitting, scrutinizing all of his vital points. "You look busted."

"It's good," he answers, grabs at a slab of pork from the freezer, places it over the bruise forming at his hip. Sukjin would nag about food sanitation, as if any of them even washed their hands with soap. Sometimes not even water. Utilities get expensive around these parts of town, and Jaesuk's always been stingy with money, regardless of how much they actually have. "Other guy's in worse shape."

"Is he dead?" Kwangsoo asks, that gleam back in his eyes, splinted in its refraction of light. Bloodlust. They all have it, but none like him. Not to his extent. "D'you kill him?"

"Nah," Gary says, and Kwangsoo shrinks down at least five inches, dismayed. "But he'll be stuck in the wards for at least a whole week, trust."

"Nice," Kwangsoo says, focus back to his cutting, playing normal. A cantaloupe, this time. Jongkook's favourite.

"Jihyo fix you up?" Ha Ha asks, once Kwangsoo's hobbled off to Jongkook's room. Keeps his voice low, even with just the two of them left in the kitchen. Even at headquarters, they're at alert, cautious. No one ever knows when something will snap.

"Yeah," he answers, guarded. No one ever really trusts anyone, either, but Ha Ha's the closest he gets. "I told her. 'Bout the pills."

"Ah, hyung," Ha Ha breathes out, forced and strident through his nose. Ha Ha's the type to flee, when there's a crossfire he's not involved in. It's what Gary expects him to do now, but Ha Ha's also the type to surprise him with bouts of loyalty, sometimes. "Jongkook-hyung's gonna be pissed when he wakes up."

"Let 'im be," Gary says. He's not worried. Not for his life. He's lost that long ago, along with everything else he'd had to give up to be here. To still be able to look defeat in the face, day after day, and not break. "She'd have found out eventually."

"Still," Ha Ha says, tips the hat he'd stolen from a chaebol kid who'd tried to gas them into thinking he was in the ranks, even as his skin looked as untouched as a virgin bride's, his boots lacking the grime and grit of a real fighter. Ha Ha doesn't take tokens from hits, not like Gary does, but he'd kept this one. Said it was from some idol's fashion line, so obviously he'd had to. Gary would've called him out on it, how pathetic it all looked, but the irony's not lost on him, so he doesn't. Dreaming of things untouchable, unattainable; that's universal.

He lights himself a cigarette in the ensuing silence, hands it over to Ha Ha after a few puffs. Sucks in nicotine and menthol and the incense Jongkook always burnt whenever he's trying for absolution. Feels at peace, knowing that he won't find it, as hard as he looks. None of them are worthy. None of them, when the bones are bared, really want to be.

"Sometimes I wonder how you're even still alive," Ha Ha broaches, when the ashes have piled up to the butt. Lets it drop to the ground, scuffs it against the tiles with his foot. "Bein' a right fucking dumbass. Getting played by love," his lip curls in disgust, "Of all the goddamned things to get jumped by at night."

Gary stomps over it, extinguishing the flame. It's something to do besides cave to what Ha Ha's trying to imply. "Listen—"

"It's made you weak," Ha Ha cuts him off, looks at him like ten years and the accumulation of blood underneath his fingernails didn't happen with him by his side. Like Gary'd really lost everything there is to lose. "But then I thought about it more. Realized something. It's the bravest thing you can do, kinda, ain't it? The only time anyone'd actually ever bet everything or nothing at all?"

Gary shuts his eyes. Breathes in, doesn't lie, breathes out.

"She'll end up getting you killed, one day," Ha Ha says, final, and this Gary knows. "And you don't even care." Says as if he knows, too, has accepted as much; the only thing that Ha Ha would carve out on his headstone for him, sworn brother that he is; his only constant truth, from life 'til death, through the beyond.

 

 

/

 

 

For all his warning, it's Ha Ha who almost dies first.

Some hotshot recruit tries to prove his mettle over on the other side. A gun goes unchecked, because no one ever suspects anything like that. They didn't have much rules they were bound by, but the ones that mattered weren't decreed out loud, didn't need to be said; you use firearms, and you're dead on all accounts. Red-tagged, another bounty added to the land's headcount, whether or not you're friend, foe, neither.

"Let go of me!" he roars in the aftermath, louder than the gunshot before it. Sees Ha Ha stagger, still smiling over a petty victory. It falls just when he does, a gravitational circulation from his mouth to his knees, dropping him to the ground, no honour to how he keels. Gary spits out anger so raw, so thick, heart before mind, body even faster than that, and Jongkook's thrown off of him just as his hands grip throat and trapezius and a carotid he doesn't let go of until the thrumming halts beneath the pulse of his own thumb.

It's his fifth kill, just with his fingers, and he breaks most of them against the motherfucker's skull. Someone takes Ha Ha to the hospital, lacking exit wounds unconjurable even for Jihyo's brand of magic. Leaves the hotshot behind, barely a body, blood trailing the concrete like the Minotaur's string. One for the fucking dogs.

He paces in Jihyo's room the entire time he's operated on. Back and forth, restless in his skin, leather, the mud that drips from the seams of his pants. His knuckles are thrown. Jihyo isn't able to fix that, either, but she tries. Don't they all, when that's all there is to do?

"Hold still," she says, but there's no command in her voice, not like the other times. It's almost soft. A small ration of her caring, only shared during times of calamity. "Stop moving."

"'M fucking fine," he snarls, yanks his arm out of her hand. With him, once the fury starts, everyone's a stranger. Even her. "Ha Ha—"

"Won't get better just because you're throwing a fit," she interrupts, tone curt, and shoves him down on a chair with brute strength he almost always forgets she has. "Now hold _still_."

"Fuck you," he says. Grits his teeth through the realignment of his bones, the extraction of glass from his cheek. Through the futility of it all, knowing that even in this, she's left him alone. "You never—after everything—just 'cause it's not Jongkook-hyung, huh? Ha Ha ain't worth nothin' like that? He's gonna die, but who gives a rat's fuckin' ass, right? He ain't the one fucked up on hydro, he—"

She slaps him, right on the cheek she'd just tried to mend, embeds the remaining shards deeper into his flesh, some into her own. Breeds infection within a day, a hand crippled, adds her more work she doesn't even like to do, only does out of necessity, fostered obligation. Means she's angry, too. "Don't. This isn't about you."

"'Course not," he sneers. Stripped down, he's always going to be a fighter. Always going to give back, blow for blow. Has to. He hasn't forgotten how, hasn't forgotten why. "It's always been 'bout you."

"How dare—"

"There's nothin'," he says. Lifts his hand, index finger pointed to where her heart should lie, chattering into ribs like the rest of them, like it should, like it doesn't. "Nothin' in there. None of us chose each other, but we give a shit, all of us, we—'cept you. You, you're heartless," his fingers crook into the fabric of her collar, draws her closer, a move for battle. But he's tired, feels fatigue creep out of him like a hemorrhage, like the crash of epi on code blue, and Ha Ha's dying, god, Ha Ha's _dying_ — "You got nothin' to give."

She's a good combatant, he'd always given her that; lithe, quick, technical. What he's got is power behind him, emotion, only one way he knows how to expel. He has her pinned to the wall in three moves, nine seconds, a personal record, and it should be his win.

But this is Jihyo; clever where she's low on experience, innovative where the opportunity to one-up an opponent is missing. Out of moves, and yet she still trumps him well over: she kisses him.

It's hard, a scrabble of teeth on lips and limbs on necks and he can't breathe, can't think, feels every curve of her body stifle the tone of his until he's asphyxiated, no sustenance left besides the air and the wrath that she blows into his mouth.

"I care," she says, bites it across his collarbones, a slow, cold burn creeping from her skin to his. The heat of her thighs wet, slick, when she guides his good hand down beneath cloth, her nails like hooks when they pierce into his back to push him inside her. "I _care_." Chokes on a sob, a name, when she comes, everything he'd known it would be, everything he'd allowed himself to imagine. Isn't what he wants, still, doesn't even come close.

Up against her, time and again, it's always him who'll lose.

 

 

/

 

 

Jaesuk's sitting outside, when he slips out of her room. Eyes shaded behind the glint of sun against his glasses, but the shadows cast under are deep, fierce, improbable to be caused by the light at his current angle. Exhausted, like he hasn't slept a day this week, conditional insomnia he always gets whenever any of them toes the line, on the brink of death.

He doesn't look surprised, seeing where Gary's come from. Maybe he's too tired to be, or maybe Gary's become predictable. The shame Gary spills is the only thing certain.

"You rang it in big last night, eh?" Jaesuk says, grin warped and malformed and uglier than its legend. "Got y'self a kill, and a girl.  _Your_ girl."

"It ain't like that," he says, uselessly, because Jaesuk already knows this. Jaesuk knows of everything that could threaten his organization. "How's Ha Ha?"

"Alive," Jaesuk says, and relief envelops all spaces of their quarters. "Kid's a right menace. Almost coded three times, but he didn't let up for five hours."

"What a pest," he says, but he feels his own teeth bare too, arranging into a smile. "Should we watch out for the nurses? They might end up killin' him off, anyways, with a mouth like 'is."

"No need," Jaesuk shakes his head, clicks his tongue. "His main one's sweet on 'im. Caught 'imself the same bug you did."

He still can't see his eyes, but he knows Jaesuk's staring right at him, trying for an explanation without words that Gary doesn't need.

"Y'know I don't bother with regulatin' you shitheads," Jaesuk says. "'Cause it don't work out every which way. But it gets hard, watchin' out for the six of you."

"C'mon, who even asked you to, y'big damn hero? We all watch out for each other, there's no danger," he laughs, but he sounds too desperate, reeks too much of Jihyo's perfume to be convincing. Says, "Ha Ha's gonna be fine," even if he can't see Ha Ha being in love, can't see him handling it like anything but the disaster it is. Couldn't see it for himself either, back then, but.

"Sometimes..." Jaesuk trails off, like he realizes he's not one to talk. He'd been married, once; the only piece of information Sukjin had told them when they'd pressed him about who Jaesuk really was behind the corporate suits sans tie, three Christmases ago. Sukjin had shut up after that, that year's holiday miracle, so they didn't get to find out if he still was, or if he's been divorced; if she's been killed, if he'd killed her himself. All Gary knows is that Jaesuk wears a ring, a thin gold band wrapped infinitely around the fourth finger of his left hand. Has seen it glimmer through the cover of a man's blood, the dirt of their territory, the trickle of water when he washes it all away. Never taken off.

Jaesuk fiddles with it now, twists it around a knuckle. "Anyways. Watch out for yourself too, s'all I'm sayin'. Keep vigilant," Jaesuk stands up, eyes brought to visibility by the shift in position, and there's something unsettling in them, when Gary turns to look, when he says, "There's things out there that even I can't protect you from," like he knows all about it, just a little too much.

 

 

/

 

 

The first token he'd collected was a necklace. Standard-issued army dog tags, scuffed illegible when he drags the guy twenty metres against brick wall. The only thing readable by the end of it is a name:  _Cheon Seong Mun_.

"Cool," Kwangsoo had marveled, splattering blood all over his shirt when he'd scrambled to grab it out of Gary's hand. "Can I keep it, hyung?"

"You stupid?" Jongkook said, had walloped Kwangsoo on the back of his head, pushing him three steps forward with the momentum. "You walk around with that on  _your_ neck and you'll risk us getting I.D.'d all the way from Incheon." He yanked the chain from Kwangsoo and placed it back in Gary's fist. "Put it back where you found it."

He'd had all intention to do so—that shit was a noose, back when he was completing his service, and he'd kiss the President on the mouth to not have to wear one again for the rest of his life—but another guy had charged at him from behind the building, so he'd pocketed it and put it off for later in favour of breaking the guy's sternum in.

Later doesn't come, because the sirens had begun to wail. The necklace rattled inside his jeans throughout the whole chase. Other than that, it was mostly forgotten. Jongkook had been too busy dodging bullets to henpeck, and Gary just didn't quite care enough to remember. Stayed like that for a week, until she came around.

"Hyung, I got—you fucking _bitch_ ," Ha Ha's voice had echoed across the gym, and Gary had stilled the whir of the punching bag with his two hands to listen. "Hyung, this girl said you got somethin' of hers, and now she wants it back up her big fat cun—the next time you do that, I swear to fuckin'  _god_ —"

Gary had looked then, but he didn't see her first. It had been Ha Ha, getting his sideburns pulled, his hairline stretched taut, crying out for retribution to a deity he doesn't believe in, and then she'd materialized from right behind him: not any taller than Ha Ha, a shock of burgundy hair fried at the ends by the bad dyejob, barbaric murder in her eyes when she'd flashed him a glimpse.

"You," she'd said, released Ha Ha and barreled towards him in a flicker of light. "Give it back."

"Give what back?" he'd managed to say, before she'd punched him up the jaw, an audible crack of a bone heard. Hers, because he'd been hit enough to have scar tissue build up like a fortress, and it was obvious from her swing that she hadn't hit anyone before that. "The fuck, lady—you're a _lunatic—_ "

"Give it  _back_ ," she'd insisted loudly, ferocious, even as she'd doubled over to cradle her fractured hand against her stomach. "Seong Mun's dog tags, give it back."

"What? This?" he'd pulled out the dog tags from his pocket. Dangled it in between them, just as the question of her identity did. "Who sent you?"

"No one," she'd said, arm extending for the object, but he'd only lifted it higher, out of her reach. "Just give it back to me, and I'll leave."

"'Ey, hold on a sec, I don't even know if you're—"

"Jihyo?" Jongkook had arrived, an indignant Ha Ha in tow. Had looked confused, a little out of his element, the first that Gary'd seen. He'd always thought it to be impossible; Jongkook was as detached as a lowlife gets, hits and beats and kills without so much as a rattled blink, but the girl's done it just by virtue of being there right in front of him.

"Oppa," she'd breathed out, head thrown so sharply in Jongkook's direction that it'd been an active thought in Gary's mind, how her spine hadn't shattered along with her hand. "Seong Mun—they killed him, oppa, they—"

He'd only realized how pretty she was then, after her face had wrinkled unattractively, an attempt to keep herself from crying. Gary hadn't seen real tears in a while. Not ones like hers, triggered by something besides the pain of a rolled shoulder, a face slammed against window panes, the sting you get when you don't get much sleep. By actual compassion, empathy that wasn't limited to taking advantage, to what's beneficial for winning, survival.

"I know," Jongkook said, tenderly, and Gary'd exchanged a glance with Ha Ha in disbelief. "I heard. If there's anything you want me to do—"

"That dog's got his necklace," she'd said. She hadn't looked at him, but Jongkook had known who she meant, looked at Gary like he'd just offered to spot him lift. "I just want it back."

"Alright," Jongkook said, gesturing silently for Gary to hand him the dog tags. He'd complied. Just to see what would happen next, not because he'd thought her pitiful. "Here, Jihyo. C'mere."

Jihyo had heeded his call, ironically enough, like a dog following its owner: padded over to him purposefully, stopping a few inches from his feet, brain set on the one thing she'd come to fetch. Got rewarded with a necklace slipped over her head, the metal plate slotting in the middle of her chest with a quiet tinkle, a collar chiming mid-run. Barked a, "Thank you," and then bowed her head.

"You got somewhere to be?" Jongkook asked, and her head had jittered. No. "You wanna talk to Jaesuk?" She'd stilled for a moment, thought about it, and then nodded her assent. "Okay. I'll bring you over."

"Hyung," Ha Ha'd said reflexively, a defense mechanism. Jaesuk screens for newcomers like a malfunctioning EAS: you either pinged no alarm, or you pinged all of them, at once. It's why he'd stopped, after Kwangsoo, because he'd misjudged, had to let go of so many after him. The ones who couldn't live with what they had, what they did; couldn't deal a hand, even with nothing to lose.

And they barely even fucking knew the girl; she had good handles, Jongkook's vouch, the death of someone she cared for. That was it. But Jongkook's jaw had tensed, and Ha Ha had cowered, and Gary had already known then that there would be no democracy, no liberty, as long as it came to her. 

 

 

/ 

 

 

(He'd known, but he hadn't gotten what it meant until much later on. Stationed to patrol the blocks, on a Monday, he'd found out.

"Sorry about hitting you," she'd mumbled, sidelong. No longer the weeping girl of a month ago, looking lost and impeded by attachments, emotional gangrene that she couldn't saw off. With a little polishing, she'd been able to, had come up good and skilled; was even a crack shot, when they'd messed about with guns away from the hills' earshot. An all around ace. "That day. It wasn't your fault Seong Mun died."

"Tch. Women," he'd said, earned him a knobby elbow to the ribs. She'd shed some weight, in the short time she'd been with them, the little fat she had transitioning into muscle. Showed it off, too, worked out in sports bras and skimpy athletic shorts that had even Kwangsoo blushing, intentional or not. "It didn't even hurt, so it ain't worth shit now."

"Just thought it'd start conversation," she'd said, drawing out her own noise of annoyance from low in her throat. "The night's long."

It wasn't so much long as it was cold, the winds churning ice wherever it passed, Demeter's kiss on everything that breathed: winter was coming. Jaesuk had wanted a full scout of the land before the first snow fell and washed the ground out in white, and Mondays had always been designated to him. Brought with him heating pads for the journey, but he hadn't expected Jihyo to tag along, so not enough to share. She'd been glued to Jongkook's side since the moment she came, an earnest sidekick, and Jongkook seemed fond enough of her that no one had the heart—or the stamina—to really question it aside from a few passing looks and some locker humour snickers.

Jongkook's always deferred to authority, though, and Jaesuk's the closest there is to a figurehead, so Gary had guessed that it'd been on his order that Jihyo come, even if he hadn't been sure what exactly he was playing at.

"They'd burned his body," Jihyo'd said, after a few long beats of silence. Huddled in closer against him, like a child, sharing the horror stories only she understood. Kept him warm, buzzing, their bodies aligned from shoulder to wrist. "And it rained. I couldn't even collect his ashes right after."

"'S a little morbid for ramyun, don't y'think," he'd said, but he'd passed the steaming cup over placatingly, niced by the convenience store owner around the hedge whom Sukjin maintained a conversational relationship with for the free newspapers. "Well, whoever they were, they got theirs. I'd left 'em as good as dead."

"As good as still doesn't mean dead, though," Jihyo'd said, faraway, and Gary had no reason to rebuke. Revenge was a feeling you carried alone, even if the act itself could prattle off an entire population. "Sometimes I hate you, knowing that you'd left them alive. But then I think about the things _I_  could still do to them, how that leaves me to finish them off, and I get this thrill. Like I was made to do this, you know?"

And she'd looked it; all blue fire in her eyes and lids half-closed in unsated hunger and savagery in the jut of her lip, and he'd confirmed it then: she was frightening, and she was beautiful. No debate about it.

"You're fuckin' terrifying," he'd said as much, when she'd held down a guy from Eunpyong that they'd caught breaching borders for him to kick his boot in. Didn't wince when his blood splashed her, didn't hesitate when his tattoo identified him as part of the group that had gotten her brother killed, and landed the final blow. "'S hot. Keep it up."

"We make a good team," she'd said, skin glowing prettily under the sharp tang of red, and all he'd wanted to do was to smear the blood clotting on her forehead like a ceremony of inundation, signing off on a vow. "You should keep it professional."

"Let's not fall in love, then, yeah?" he'd said, and went right ahead in doing so anyways.)

 

 

/

 

 

"Gary-ssi."

He pauses. "Yeah, hyung?" With a tone like that, the honorifics reinstated to his name, he knows Jongkook's irritated. Knows exactly why. "What's up?"

"Take a drive with me," Jongkook says, halfway between a question and a command. Throws him the keys. "Ha Ha's getting discharged today."

"Alright," he says, adrenaline already pumping in his veins, stimulating his body for a fight. "Let's go."

The ride itself is anticlimactic. Gary drives, and Jongkook cycles through the radio stations their shit reception gets for thirty minutes, finnicky and unsatisfied with all the latest tunes. Finally stops when some old ballad plays, piano chords the dominant instrument in its backing track the whole song through. Jongkook's that type of guy. Sappy, dated, built for romance. Gary liked things harder: heavy bass behind bars, meanings hidden beneath the rough staccato of a rap verse. Peeling off the layers, finding something worthwhile after all the brutal, barehanded work.

"Should I go to rehab?" Jongkook asks, and Gary doesn't look away from the stretch of road ahead. "Since we're already headed for the hospital."

"If you think it'd help," Gary murmurs. This was a game. Jongkook's proficient in those, but he's not half bad himself. "But be careful, hyung. People get snaked in there. It could get us found out."

"I'll talk to Jaesuk, then," Jongkook says, and Gary hums. This was still safe grounds, Jongkook being all talk and no substance. "Should I ask Jihyo to marry me?"

He almost skids through lanes at the non-sequitur. "What?"

"I think it's time," Jongkook continues, expression unchanged, unreadable, but Gary sees the slight upwards pull of his mouth on one side, a centimetre off from its natural curl. This—this was Jongkook playing dirty, using the things he knew in confidence against his rivals in open play. Getting their demons on his side, because those were the only things they had left for companions, and once without, they were just as human, just as isolated, as the rest of them.

He's never hated Jongkook. Couldn't, because they were family, and he took that oath seriously, and because it wasn't ever his fault. But now, for the first time, it claws up from deep within him, sinking in on every ridge on his throat, a wretched, feral feeling that blurs his vision and coils at his sinews, dialing him up for the eventual spring.

"I'm getting older," Jongkook says, only thirty-two. It's not young, but it's hardly geriatric. "I should start settling down," he says, but for what? Jihyo doesn't need his commitment, evidently, because she's fucking hung up on him whether or not he breaks or keeps his promises, or even makes them, in the first place. "I should build a family," he says, and Gary scoffs. Doesn't begrudge Jongkook's character enough to think that he'd ever dare bring in his own child into their world, but doesn't overestimate his capabilities to think that he'd be able to leave it, either. This was permanent. You spill your first blood, you wash it off, but the mark stays. The scar keloiding, the ghost haunting. Always.

"I dunno what you want from me," Gary says. Almost all of his control concentrated on his voice, the little bit left spared for the tightened grip on the steering wheel. "It ain't enough, sometimes, but I fuckin'  _try_ , hyung. I always fucking tr—"

"Try harder," Jongkook says harshly, but there's an apology in there. Somewhere. He shuffles in his seat, taps his feet, restless tic he'd adopted after getting hooked on pain meds. Says, "'S whatever. I haven't really decided on it yet. Just wanted to get a second opinion," and then nothing else for the rest of the drive.

They pick Ha Ha up at the front entrance, wheelchair bound and talking to a pretty girl dressed in scrubs, head tipped up in a goofy grin. Must be the bug Jaesuk's told him about, he thinks. Feels genuinely sorry for Ha Ha, because he'd been living a dream, and now he was being thrust back into a reality he wouldn't ever choose, two times over, once he wisens up. Realizes.

"Home, sweet, home!" Ha Ha cackles, after he'd waved Byul bashfully goodbye, caught in the act, and Gary's only left wishing. "Seriously, Jaesuk-hyung's gonna hear it when I get back, didn't even tell me you assholes were gonna pick me up when he'd called..."

He jabbers on for a couple more minutes, one-sidedly, and then stops, suddenly. Has sensed the atmosphere in the car, looked between the two of them from his perspective in the back seat. Met Gary's eyes in the front mirror, saw something in them for elaboration, to understand. He fidgets with his sling, picking at loose threads, and the snip of string is the only sound that permeates throughout their entire ride home.

 

 

/

 

 

Lying on his bed, later on, he thinks about all the things Jongkook had said: _I think it's time. I'm getting older. I should start settling down. I should build a family_.

But he hadn't said one thing. The one thing that mattered, that made a difference. And it was enough. For now, that hope was enough. 

 

 

/ 

 

 

And not for always. He walks in on them a lot more after that. Innocently, their eyes crescents with the transfiguration of their smiles. Intimately, with his hand on her back, her arm looped through the juncture of his elbow; their ankles knocking under the table, when they eat dinner, and the furtive looks they give each other over it.

So maybe he does love her, he thinks, listening to how her bedroom door creaks in the middle of the night, when everyone pretends to still be able to sleep on time, banking on a healthy circadian rhythm they no longer possessed. Tunes them out, as best as he can, because she'd been wrong about him: doesn't like the pain, can't be the self-sacrificing masochist she requires him to be.

"You fucking youths," Sukjin gripes in the morning, even though the sources of his ire were still cooped up together in a bed, one wall away. "I get it, you're all deprived, but you gotta have some respect for an old man's bowel schedule. Take that shit outdoors if you really can't help it."

"Not when the pollen's all flyin' about like that," Ha Ha says, shoveling rice into his mouth, probably a grain off from necessitating a Heimlich. "I ain't having my dick gettin' rashy."

"Stop frontin' as if you're gettin' some, hyung," Kwangsoo walks past, lighthouse beckoning, brought to the ground in an instant by Ha Ha's tackling wave. "Stop it, you rat—I fuckin' said what I said, I ain't takin' anything back, I—"

"Wha's goin' on?" Jihyo asks blearily, rubbing at her eyes, emerging from her room. Sits down beside him, leans over to reach for the plate of eggs. The skin of her arm soft, where it brushes accidentally against his neck, the russet brown strands of her hair, newly dyed, smelling of drug store-bought product and a faint whiff of freesia.

His chest clenches. "Nothin'," he says, endures it for a bit longer. Building immunity, testing himself for the long run. "The usual." He stands up when he's reached his limit, but her fingers flutter daintily across his wrist. Not a great display of force, but she doesn't need one, anyways. He's still held back.

"You're not eating?" she asks, voice subdued. Like she was hiding, waiting for the drop. Why she would, he doesn't know, because he's never posed a threat, not to her, and definitely not to Jongkook. "There's a lot left."

"'M not hungry," he says, pulls out off her touch with the excuse of putting on his wristbands. "I'll eat later."

"You're losing weight," she says, and he falters. Sukjin watches them with curious eyes from behind his newspaper. "Your cheekbones. They look hollow."

"Didn't think you'd notice," he grins splittingly, trying to conceal how much he means it. "Admit it. Y'think I'm sexy now, don't ya'?"

He expects her to whack him, playfulness bordering on malice. Friendly. But she only frowns, "I notice more than you think I do," and then reframes her gaze back to her bowl, conversation over.

Does she? he muses, when he walks out towards the gym. Mong Jihyo, the district calls her. Draws on blanks, all elusive. They can't tell, can never anticipate her next move.

Most of the time, neither can he.

 

 

/

 

 

It's his turn next, after Ha Ha. Gets ganged up on in a secluded alley by a group of twelve teens, barely out of puberty, but they have the numbers, enough naivety and recklessness and mob mentality to take the advantage.

He's good, but not good enough. Thinks that the attrition rate for fools in love really was a steep curve, and then promptly blacks the fuck out.

He floats in and out, hears voices with the same shrill note of panic that makes them difficult to assign a name to in his haze.

"Fuckin' bastards!" that's Ha Ha, raising hell in his stead. Reliable to a fault, even when he doesn't look it. "You messed with the wrong fuckin' man, you'll fuckin' get that when I rip your fuckin' arms off and shred 'em to feed to your fuckin' mothers—"

"Get him outta here," Jongkook, delegating instructions, when everyone else is too shaken to lead. "Ha Ha, fuck's _sake_ —get him outta here first, I'll fuckin' save three of them for you, just—"

"Is he gonna be alright?" Kwangsoo, the only one who was ever really upfront with his worry, too pure even with all the blood he craves, to believe in anything other than brotherhood and _'til death do part_. "He ain't gonna die, right? He's gonna make it? He's gonna be—"

"We had a fuckin' deal, Myungsoo!" Jaesuk, yelling into his phone, dealing with things through the filmy lens of business and a struggle for power. "You said you'd rein them in, and now I got a fuckin' man down and I can't even get 'im to the hospital 'cause you raise fuckin'  _infants_ that're fuckin'  _registered_  in that fuckin' hovel of yours, you piece of fuckin'—"

"I got the car," Sukjin, who constantly got grief for coming in clutch only at the start, but it's usually right when they need it most, has enough gas to give for someone else to seamlessly take the wheel. "C'mon, hurry, before the highways jam up again—I'm fucking _prehistoric_  and I walk faster than you lot, Jesus—"

He should focus on staying alive. It's not the time to get sentimental. Then again, this was the only time he could ever get away with it: face ballooning in inflammation, internal bleeding from three different organs, shoulder blade sticking out of his skin like a shark's fin above sea.

Might as well go ahead. Maybe it'll teach him how to stop throwing away golden opportunities, once— _if_ —he survives.

 

 

/

 

 

"Jihyo."

"I'm fine."

"Jongkook-hyung's worried."

"Tell him I said I'm fine."

"You haven't slept in almost four days. That's subhuman stats, man."

"I don't care. I can go longer."

"Ah. Y'know he won't be waking up anytime soon, right? We've pumped him up good with whatever Jaesuk got from the—"

"I know. That's fine."

"...you don't think this is your fault, right? You ain't blamin' yourself, or nothin'?"

"...no."

"Well, that's good. We got no need for another hero complex in this room 'ere."

"What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothin'. I'm just sayin'. People get a lil' suffocating with their preconcepts and what not."

"You mean preconceptions, dumbass."

"The fuck you insultin' me for, bigshot? Grammar's a useless skill anyways, I dunno why you gotta be so cocky 'bout it all the damn time..."

The air stales. His hand's warm, but he doesn't know why, can't will his eyes open to check.

"You want some noodles? Kwangsoo ordered some a while ago, it's gettin' delivered soon so—"

"I'm fine. You go ahead."

"'Ey, listen. I'm too fast too live, but I'm too young to die, too, y'know?" 

"That's a plagiarized quote from that song by that idol you like, isn't it?"

"What? I—it's an honest song, alright, don't knock it when you haven't even fuckin'—whatever. I'm makin' a point. Jongkook-hyung would kill me if I step outta here without you behind me, so you better make the right choice if you actually wanna save a life. So, Mong Ji: you gonna eat, or what?"

"You're threatening me?"

"I mean, if I gotta. Just don't tell Jongkook-hyung 'bout it."

"You're such a wuss."

"Better than bein' a ragdoll pulled between two big fuckin' babies!" His palm suddenly feels just as cold as the rest of his body. "Agh, _fuck_ —Jesus Christ, what the hell's your trauma?"

"Tell oppa I'm not hungry."

"God, you ain't seriously makin' me say it, right? Stop makin' every little thing into a TV soap. You guys are honestly too much, seriously."

"All I said was that I'm not hungry. What's soapy about that?"

"Because you're makin' me—! Ah, fuck it. Gary-hyung ain't blamin' you for shit. He also ain't gonna be the one to hook you up to an IV when you eventually knock out from a whoppin' triple combo of hunger, dehydration, and exhaustion, because he'd be too busy pulverizin' me and Jongkook-hyung for not takin' care of you when he couldn't. Y'see what I'm gettin' at?  _Soapy_."

"No one asked him to take care of me. He should take care of himself."

"All that college background you keep boastin', and you're still just as stupid as the rest of us." Ha Ha kisses his teeth. "Just 'cause no one asked don't mean he won't. Y'should know that by now."

"...I don't want him to die."

"Ah. Stop that. He ain't dyin'. If watchin' you pine after Jongkook-hyung for years ain't killed him yet, then this wouldn't either."

He doesn't get to hear Jihyo's response. Is as far as he goes, without his brain clouding in the downers they've injected into him to the brim, barring a dose that'd kill him before the injuries ever could.

But he figures out why his hand's been jumping temperatures, before he falls back to sleep: she's been clasping it in hers, indefinitely, before Ha Ha'd provoked a slap. Isn't letting go, not now that she's glued to it again, not now that she's gotten it back.

 

 

/ 

 

 

As it is, Ha Ha's the only one in the room when he properly wakes up.

"'Bout time, sunshine," Ha Ha says. Flicks him an orange peel that lands on his face, makes him hiss from the burn of the residual acid against the stitches on his skin. "Shit. My bad, hyung."

"Y'got a lot to apologize for," Gary says, mouth parched, remembers the conversation he'd overheard, however many nights ago. Once he's all patched up and rehabbed, he's going to  _decimate_ Ha Ha until his bone marrow shows. "Jihyo gone to sleep yet?"

"You knew?" Ha Ha asks. Sees the glare Gary sends him from underneath all the bandages, he guesses, because he's scratching sheepishly behind his ear with his next words. "Guess you'd heard, too. But yeah, she KO'd just a few hours ago. Jongkook-hyung's got her in 'is room right now."

"Ah." He doesn't know why he's disappointed. Not like he'd thought things would change just because he'd been three-quarters into a coma, and was now finally awake. "Guess I'd hallucinated some of the things you guys said, then." And her hand had felt so fucking real, too, but that was probably the Dilaudid talking. Gets, for a clear moment, why Jongkook couldn't ever follow through on cutting from it cold-turkey.

"I wouldn't think that," Ha Ha says, with a low whistle, adamant. "She was real worried 'bout you. Wouldn't even eat, and Jongkook-hyung had to  _beg_. You should'a seen it. Shit was wild, I'm tellin' you."

Jihyo, the only one who could bring them all to their knees like a wily dictator finding new charges. He finds some solace in the fact that they were all pathetic, in one way or another. "Sounds like it."

Ha Ha kisses his teeth again. It's an annoying habit, but they all had one: Jaesuk pushed at his glasses, Sukjin rolled his head, Jongkook tapped at his feet; Kwangsoo brings in too many stray cats, Jihyo puts too much detergent in the wash, and Gary hoards away any small shred of hope. All routine.

"Listen," Ha Ha starts. "Hyung. If there's ever gonna be a bust up, you know I can't take no sides. That's too hard, even for me."

"Who's askin' you to?"

"Is that the final Jeopardy question, or somethin'? Why's everyone askin' me that?" Ha Ha takes off his hat, adjusts the strap, and puts it back on. "Whatever. Thought I'd give you fair warning, 'fore anything happened. 'Cause then I wouldn't be betrayin' no one, if things hadn't started yet?"

"Spit it out already." He's not going to do this anymore. Expecting. If a near-death experience can't even straighten his priorities, then he was as lost a cause as everyone thought him to be, surely.

"Alright, I was gettin' to it. Jeez," Ha Ha says, leans over, almost conspiratorially. "'M just sayin'. I don't think it's as decided as we'd thought, y'know? You were half-dead, and everyone's bustin' around try'na find a loophole to kill the motherfuckers that got you—they've been dealt with, by the way, ain't no need to thank me—but I was watchin' her the whole time, and she—"

Ha Ha stops, face reorienting into a shape close enough to doubt, as if maybe he'd been tripping on something too, when he saw what he said he'd seen. But Ha Ha's never indecisive for long, if Gary had to glean just one thing from the whole ten years he'd known him, and the expression's gone just as quickly as it came, "Again, 'm just sayin. Maybe it ain't a sure thing, maybe it is. Who the fuck knows. But she cares 'bout you," Ha Ha only halts this time to interject with a derisive snort. "Definitely more than she cares 'bout me, or anyone else here that's not—well, you already know who. But still. It's somethin', right?"

It's not much of a something. Something's historically better than the nothing he's always had, though, so maybe Ha Ha was right. 

Just this once, post-resolution, he'll take it. Didn't he say he was always going to be a fighter, anyways?

 

 

/

 

 

She visits him when he should be sleeping. He knows, because he isn't actually. Their narc supply's getting low again, Myungsoo's amnesty only going so far. Whatever internalized bullshit Gary may spew about valiance and courage and resistance to the influence, breaking most of your ribs and puncturing a lung can eliminate all of that hubris overnight.

So he gets by without the drugs. On stubbornness, resilience, but mostly her scent. It's still a sad existence, when he really takes the time to think about it. Takes a lot of it, too, because he's bedridden and invalid and bored to hyperbolic ends. But at least he's existing. That light that they say you see when you almost die? Silver linings.

On the eighth night, he opens his eyes. "'Ey. Jihyo."

She stops knitting. That's a thing with her now. Feared Mong Jihyo, infamous across Seoul for her marksmanship and intelligence, knits away at headquarters like a grandma in a retirement home. "Don't do that again."

"Did I shock you from that scarf you makin' for the ol' frigid summer? My bad."

"No," she says, scowls. Puts down her needles, sharpened at the ends. Weapons in themselves. "Don't almost die again. You're not allowed to die."

She says it like it's obvious. Like he actually has a hand in deciding whether or not he lives from an encounter, like he even controls who he's up against once the sun goes down. He's too mighty, seen too much shit to believe in a god, but he isn't that omniscient to be one either. "'S not like I was trying to die, or anythin'. I was just patrollin', keepin' an eye out for wanderers. Y'know how it is."

"Well, you should've brought me," she says, stumbling it out, like if she didn't, it'd be too late. When the actuality of what she'd said seems to dawn on her, she purses her lips and resumes her knitting. "Or Jongkook-oppa. Or Kwangsoo. Even Ha Ha, but—"

"C'mon now. Don't do Ha Ha like that. He's a good kid," he says, feels like he owes him at least that half-hearted defense. Has been there for all the crucial moments: in spirit, if not anything else. A catalyst, somewhat, instigating the natural progression of an experiment. "I heard he's been nicer to you while I'd been out. Cut 'im some slack."

She's quiet for a while, and he thinks, for a second, that he might've hurt her. Thinks, for the second right after, that there's no precedent for a reaction of that calibre. Not with them, so he tamps down on the initial thought before it can start to fester.

"You still think I don't care, don't you." It's not a question. It falls flat, a resignation. "After everything, you still think it's only Jongkook-oppa that's keeping me here. Is that it?"

She's not wrong. But having it said out loud, to his face, just makes him feel worse than he already does in his state. "Jihyo—"

"You guys always say that I don't like fixing anyone up because it's too much work," she cuts him off, cleanly, as always. "And that's fine. I could take that. It's true sometimes, anyways, because none of you seem to have a sense of self-preservation, and I'd had enough of it back in med school. But you wanna know why I really don't like doing it?"

He's not sure if he does, but Jihyo's always had a way of making him want the things he never thought he would. "Guess you're gonna tell me."

She doesn't even glare. Just smiles, a little aqueous, and he realizes he'd fucked up. Missed a cue somewhere, something big.

"There's this moment, sometimes, before you guys pass out. I don't think you've seen it, or that you'll ever, because you guys have boxing gloves for hands and can't bandage anything up with them," she shakes her head. Disdainful, as if being gifted in all walks of life was the norm and not an anomaly, like she is, "But your eyes dim. Like in the movies? When you're brainwashed? And I know you're not dead, because there's a pulse under my hand, but I can't help thinking—what if you've given up? Like Joongki, and Lizzy, and all of them that left. What if you thought that was the only way? Maybe not that day, but the next time, what if you maneuvered wrong? Tried to get a fatal hit somewhere intentionally?"

She finishes her scarf, throughout her speech. "You think it's easy for me. That I get everything perfectly. But I'm selfish, and I'm overbearing. I'd kept Seong Mun too close to me, because I thought it'd keep him safe, but it got him dead even faster than if I didn't."

She gets up from her chair. Walks over to drape the scarf over his chest. It'd looked black to him before, but up close, under decent fluorescent lighting, he realizes that it's made of blue yarn, a dark navy. His favourite. "So I keep you guys far away. As long as it kept you alive, I was okay. I didn't care what you thought about me."

His throat's dry. Can't say anything. Nothing to say. "Jihyo—"

"It's hard shutting out people I'd already let in," she knots at her hands, now that there's no more thread left for her to wrestle into garment. "Jongkook-oppa—I've known him since we were kids, so it's different with him. But that doesn't mean it's better. I know him, and he knows me. And he knows I—" she swallows. Only hears it because he has good acoustics in his room. "The people I keep farthest away—they're the ones who'd hurt me most, in the end."

Her head bobs, looking at anything but him. Not that she wasn't already avoiding his gaze, but it's more obvious now. "But I slip up sometimes, too. And it sucks, because there's an illusion to not making much mistakes. It happens less, but when it does, they're always big. Irreversible."

The pain's kicking in. He doesn't quite get what she's saying. That he's the mistake? That she suddenly cares about him the most? Delirium can really fuck up a guy's central outlook on life. That at least was for sure.

"I'm glad you're alive," she says, seemingly done with sending whatever message she'd wanted to convey. "If you try and die on me again, though, I really  _will_ kill you."

That's just like Jihyo, to disclose something confidential with him and make it impersonal at a turn. But it's a revelation in its own right. She exits his room, the door clicking softly shut behind her, and all it leaves him with is a scarf that was inappropriate for the weather, and even more time, more ammunition, to think.

 

 

/

 

 

In a couple more weeks, he's good to go again. Still bruised, nursing a few new types of chronic pain, but he feels indomitable. Or just ecstatic to be out of his sunken in mattress. Whichever.

It's enough time to make a decision. He still isn't 100% about it, is still mostly going on scraps, but he figures if he's going to fail, then it should be when he's already down. He's a risk-taker, but he's never been without a back-up plan: knows when he'll fall, how it'll happen, where it'll land him. Only once did he miss doing so, but he's righting that now, so there's no point in dwelling. He's learning how to forgive himself, too, along with everything else he's taking as a lesson.

He gets himself fitted for a suit. Jaesuk laughs at him when he asks for his tailor's number, and then laughs some more, and then finally, excruciatingly, imparts that he got his suits pre-made from that clothing store three blocks down that made a living out of bootlegging high-end European brands. He'd have hit him right on the nose, but he's still a bit weak, and Jaesuk could pack a punch himself even if he looks like a small circuit wire: the boss for a reason. But there's some things Gary has to do without Jaesuk spurring him on, so he shifts his targets and moves his question down the line of command.

"I know a guy," Sukjin says, already scribbling a number across Gary's arm in orange ink, near invisible. Sukjin's never been the biggest personality around the districts, but what made him special were the connections he's made. Always knows a guy who knows a guy who knows where the sabotage will take place. "Tell him Big Nose sent you, and he'll give you seventy off."

"Only seventy?" Gary asks, half-serious, because it was a good deal, considering, and it's not like he was truly that hard on cash. He'd been saving up for a phantom purchase, all these years of dodging electricity bills, and he's not going to be tightfisted now that he finally has something to spend it on. Something worth it. Hopefully. "These associates of yours got you gypped, hyung."

"Thankless bastard," Sukjin says, affronted, part of the Gen X but perpetually acting as if he'd been born a baby boomer. "You kids don't even know how bad the inflation rates have messed with—"

"Mother of god, shut up," Gary says, but he pats Sukjin's back gratefully on his way out of the house. "If I'd wanted a history lecture, I d'ave stayed in school."

He lets Ha Ha and Kwangsoo deal with the flowers. "Y'sure she likes roses? Ain't that a lil' simple for someone like her?"

"Jihyo-noona's a simple girl," Kwangsoo says judiciously, and Gary trusts him. Jihyo spends most of her time with Jongkook, but Kwangsoo does too, so he's sure to have picked up on a few things about her that no one else would know, wayward truths from a relationship forged. "She got ice in her veins, but she's one of 'em classics."

"The fuck you even know 'bout classics, eh, Girin?" Ha Ha squawks. Gets a tree trunk arm shoving him down to the ground for the lip. "You really wanna go, huh? I'll fuckin'—"

Which leaves Jongkook last. "Hyung."

Jongkook looks up from his lifting, sets the barbell back on its stand. Sits upright, gives him a once-over, sizes him up. "You look slick."

Gary scuffs his loafers against the pavement of the gym. Hadn't broken them in yet, so they're tight on the heel, but it's part of the package for a tentative attempt: bleached the collars of his shirt, ironed it, wrangled his hair smartly with gel. Even wore a tie, even though Jaesuk had cawed at his audacity. "Thanks. Kwangsoo's a tough picker. Took two hours just to choose between cobalt and midnight. As if that shit made a difference, right?"

"I'll bet," Jongkook says, and he sounds amused. Fond. "You want somethin'?"

This was his chance. Jongkook was right there, giving it to him through the simple act of not dropping his weights on Gary's feet. Yet. "A blessin'. Or whatever."

"Ah," Jongkook says, as nonplussed as ever. So he knows. Saves him the exposition. "Finally manning up, then?"

"Not really," Gary says, the corners of his lips tugging upwards, in spite of the situation. "Just tryin' harder, like you'd said."

Jongkook chortles. "Fuckin' brat," he says, but it's still light, no hint of animosity in it. " _Mutinous G.A.E._ Why're you even comin' around to ask me? You'd already made a decision."

He has. But they took an oath, and he keeps that close to heart like everything else. Jongkook should be told, even if the final verdict's not on either of their gavels to pound. "Just makin' sure. I don't want you jumpin' me when I'm just comin' out of recovery."

"A guy gets close to dying once, and he don't let you forget it," Jongkook says. Rolls his eyes exaggeratedly, a joke, but his face wipes itself clear of humour in an instant. "She always tells me she's selfish, but all this time, I'd been just as. Knew I didn't deserve her, but tried to pull her closer when I knew she was driftin' away."

Gary sits down on the bench beside Jongkook. One of those moments he's been trying to file away for safekeeping. "'S not like I deserve her, either. She's too good for anyone, even if she is selfish." He nudges Jongkook companionably by the sides. "Stringin' us along like that, eh? Tch."

"You're probably right," Jongkook says, grinning again. There's a slight lull, the mechanical fan purring overhead, but it's still Jongkook who takes the next turn to speak. "In the car. I was serious. I'm really thinking 'bout going to rehab."

He's surprised, but not by much. The thing about change is that it's a chain reaction: once you take initiative, you notice that everyone else has, too, in some way. "I was serious too, hyung. If you think it'll help, then I'll support you. Just be careful, don't worry 'bout nothin' here. I'll watch out on these fronts while you're gone."

"Her, too?" Jongkook asks, eyebrows disappearing past the line of his sweat-matted hair.

It's all rhetorical, for him, but he'll bite. "Yeah," Gary says, stands up. Not as tall, but soaring, all the same. "Her, too."

 

 

/

 

 

"Rib eye? What're you wastin' good meat for? Shit."

"Oh my god—come  _on_ ," she says, incensed, long-suffering. Slams the bag of groceries down on the kitchen counter, freeing her arms to cross over her stomach. "What are _you_ lurking around here fo—Why are you dressed like that?"

There's a low-flow heat in his cheeks, conducting throughout his body. "Nothin' big. Thought I'd get spiffy for my get well soon party," he peers inside the bag, sorting through the ingredients she's bought. "Tenderloin too? If I'd known you'd be burnin' shit this sacred, I'd have asked Jaesuk to order pizza instead."

"No one's telling you to eat it," she huffs, pouting. Cute. The first time he's thought so, but not the first time his eyeline's been lured to her lips. "It's not just your party."

"Well, now I feel two-timed," he says, clutches at his heart theatrically, for safe measure. Jihyo snorts and shoulders right past him to head for the refrigerator, so he supposes there was no harm done, hadn't hit too close to home. "'Ey. Mong Ji. Jihyo."

"What?" she says, voice wispy like a seashell with the block of the refrigerator door. "Why are there roses in here?"

"Guy who sold 'em said it'd keep 'em preserved," he answers, straightening his tie. Clears his throat, looks on as she pulls out a chopping board from the cabinet and starts cutting into the beef. "Anyways. I love you."

From the slash heard in the air, he knows she's sliced something wrong. "Shit."

"Jesus, you're gonna get clumsy on me _now_?" he says, but he's already holding her wrist, directing her finger towards the sink and turning on the faucet.

"Why would you tell me something like that while I'm holding a cleaver?" she murmurs, pressed in close to him in the confined space. Her hip digging into his thigh, arm splayed down his chest. Aware of all his pressure points, hitting the bullseye on every last one of them. "If there's anyone to blame, it's you."

His other hand curls into a fist. "Whatever," he says, but he doesn't step away. "The roses. I got 'em. They're for you. Kwangsoo said you liked 'em, 'cause you're a classic, or somethin' old Hollywood like that. You like that too, so I'd thought—"

"Don't ruin it," she says, but it isn't hostile. Isn't anything, really, but she lists into his body, shoulders relaxing back. He shuts up to watch her. "Thank you. I like roses."

All the oozing blood's washed off from her hand. He turns the faucet off, pulls at a washcloth hanging from the dish rack to dry her fingers. Takes a band-aid from their candy greeting bowl on top of the refrigerator, sticks it snugly around the fresh wound. "There."

"Thank you," she says again, even gentler than before. Tilts her head up, and he sees: eyes with that same fire, that same savage hunger, but fueled by something else besides the zest of blood, the yearn for vengeance. Something more potent. Deadly, if misfired, mishandled.

"I love you," he says again. Drunk on that same poison. "And I know you don't. S'alright. 'S just a thing I want you to know. Not that you don't already, but—yeah. Just to be sure."

She stares up at him. "Not yet," she mumbles. 

He blinks. "What?"

"Love you," she says, and it aches, to pretend, so he doesn't bother. "I don't. But that doesn't mean I won't. So," she links their fingers slowly, interweaving, and he only notices then that he hasn't let go of her hand yet. Hasn't let go of anything, since the very beginning. "Not yet."

"'S fine," he says, and he's amazed by how much it really is. He tugs her closer, waits a little more. "Gotta keep things professional." Would wait even more than that, if need be.

"You ruined it," she says, but she's smiling, and it's brilliant, and when she kisses him, he feels just as. "Loser."

He doesn't care which he is, either way. He's alive, finally; more than what he's slumped through years in imitation, more than the definition on her anatomy textbooks can say. That's all that really counts.

 

 

/

 

 

The last token he collects is a ring. Gold band, 24 karat, gemless. Clean, honest, no blood on it but his own, trying to earn enough money to buy it to match her brother's necklace.

"You gonna ask her?" Jongkook exhales, impressed, when Gary shows it to him in the facilities. Is looking happier, fitter, brighter, no longer bogged down by whatever time had wrought. Accepting, like he's learned to take life in through the day-by-day, sunset and moonrise the only liquid change.

"Nah," Gary says. He said he'd wait, and she deserves to have things done differently, this time around: all his promises made, and all his promises kept. "Not yet."

He'll take his chances.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
